WiseGuys, which rewards winners with over €2500 in free chips every month, has been broadened so that there are now three quite different categories at which to have a bash, namely Cash, Sit n Go and Multi-table tournaments (MTT). Regardless of your favourite format there will be a leaderboard to fight your way up, and the fact that prizes are on offer regularly means that we’re always in with a chance of pocketing a useful cash bonus for our efforts.

Cash games on WiseGuys is run on a daily basis, with the top three cash earners netting themselves €50, €30 and €20 respectively in free chips! All we need to be eligible to win one of these gold, silver and bronze prizes is to earn 500 Redbacks during the relevant 24-hour period (note that 500 Redbacks earned exclusively in each format are required for eligibility on a specific leaderboard). Of course having seven opportunities each week (instead of the former, weekly format) to find ourselves on the leaderboard affords us the flexibility of suffering losing days – even disasters – yet nevertheless starting on a level footing with everyone else in a brand new race as soon as midnight chimes.

The WiseGuys Sit n Go leaderboard runs on a weekly basis, so the rewards are higher, with €150, €100 and €50 going to the three players with the highest profits through the week.

Multi-table tournaments being a little more difficult to get into the money, the WiseGuys MTT category gives 32Red Poker’s MTT fans a whole month to build a successful leaderboard campaign, with the Gold, Silver and Bronze rewards being €250, €150 and €100 in chips respectively.

Good luck at the tables, whether they are Cash, Sit n Go or MTTs, and don’t forget to check your progress by visiting the leaderboards, which are updated hourly at www.32redpoker.com/promotions/wiseGuys-leaderboards.html

There’s more than one way to skin a rabbit, as they say, and there’s more than one way to play No Limitheads up cash. Some games start out like a boxing match where both protagonists initially try to size each other up rather than commit themselves too early. Both players will soon make the occasional show of aggression and, typically, someone might chance their arm or make an outright bluff and the skirmish ends with a big pot before it got a chance to properly get going.

Generally the tussle develops into a rhythm, and it is this potential for predictability that we need to exploit if we are to become winning heads up cash players. Some good players build around a strategy that involves only pre-flop raising, reraising or folding, combined with consistent aggression post-flop. This can be very effective against passive players who fold too much while waiting for big hands, but others might start to fight back, especially if they suspect that they’re up against someone who is trying to transfer a 6-max strategy to heads up.

Betting and raising the same amount/multiple every time with a wide range is a good way of getting monsters paid off when they come around, while others prefer to ‘randomly’ mix up the size of their bets. Both approaches are difficult to read for different reasons, and their success depends on how the opposition reacts, which is why we need to be flexible and able to switch gears and playing styles accordingly.

Given that our opponents will be trying to do the same, the trick as we gain experience is to recognise certain plays and habits first in order to exploit them to the maximum before we get found out or the opponent addresses the problem. Ideally we want to be one step ahead and anticipate when our opponent changes tactics, perhaps even helping them arrive at a new strategy when our own is no longer working so well by repeating a particular play – this lays the foundations for us to set them up further down the line in very favourable circumstances.

We should also be prepared against opponents who seem to be getting overconfident (pre-flop raising increasingly often, and with bigger bets; too many big, loose reraise bluffs etc.) to step back a little and assume an ostensibly passive role. Instead of fighting fire with fire we should avoid also becoming reckless in raising wars, opting to surrender a few blinds and small pots so that when the inevitable happens and we hit big the rewards of the pot we win (simply by going along for the ride) will be more than enough.

It is not unusual when this happens for an opponent to continue playing over-aggressively, either because they are incapable – at least in the short term – of slowing down or because they believe that we expect them to put on the brakes and instead try to get away with a bit more bullying. We should keep this in mind in the aftermath of catching them out as otherwise we will miss the opportunity to punish them again.

And thus the struggle can continue in cycles, with each player endeavouring to steer the game down their own path. Remember that being predictable is a mistake if we can be exploited, but we are happy to be perceived as predictable if the result is to our advantage when the opposition reads the situation incorrectly (for example we might profitably throw in well timed reraises pre-flop with nothing to pick up more than our fair share of handy sized pots because our opponent thinks they are sensibly folding decent hands, all thanks to our winning a couple of hands earlier when we had done the same with strong holdings).

Flexibility and the willingness to switch tactics that aren’t working – and even change gears when they are, for example – is all part of broadening our horizons when it comes to NL heads up cash.

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We all know by now the importance of position in No LimitHold’em, and just by sensibly acquainting ourselves with the numerous implications of being in or out of position in the more common types of situation we can make a significant improvement to our game.

Here we shall touch upon considerations we should give to position in certain scenarios at the Turn stage of betting. The turn is a particularly awkward phase to play because by this stage the field has been whittled down to those players who believe that they have a realistic chance of winning the pot, whether this is through the strength of a made hand, draws or by way of a bluff. But of course there is usually only one winner, so how the players act on the turn plays a vital role in deciding who emerges with the chips, and whether or not players have made the best of their circumstances – do we get the most out of the pots we win and – equally important – do we get away with losing as little as possible when we don’t succeed in taking a pot?

Regardless of what our strategy has been during a hand then, depending on what the turn brings, we might find ourselves having to change tactics, and we must also look at the action (or otherwise) on the turn in terms of how the card might have affected the opposition’s play. Clearly, with only a limited amount of time to act, it helps to have in mind what we might do in response to certain cards appearing that are related to both our own hands and those we put our opponents on. We need to get used to thinking along these lines rather than allowing ourselves to be distracted while ‘waiting’ for our time to act – it’s not possible to concentrate ‘too much’ during a hand, and there’s no excuse for realising that we made a mistake moments after the hand has gone pear-shaped when we could have worked it out when it mattered and acted accordingly (of course we should be concentrating throughout a hand – even those we’re not involved in!).

For instance if a scare card comes on the turn we need to weigh up for whom the card has more meaning. It might not help us, but may also not help our opponent, who could well me more afraid of its arrival than we are. Consequently the matter of position here is crucial. Let’s say the card brings a third heart that could have filled someone’s flush (but not us). The choices afforded us by being in position are very helpful indeed. Factoring in our opponent’s tendencies both in this hand and in previous play, we can respond to a check, for example, by checking behind if we judge that by betting we might run into a spoiling check-raise. Alternatively, if this opponent has shown a willingness to back down, then we can instead bet and most likely take the pot if doing so fits in with how the betting has panned out thus far (and, hopefully, is believable in terms of our table image). Even if out of position it might be possible to exploit these same factors by betting if it appears that assuming the initiative will induce a fold. However, such a play brings with it some danger, highlighting the problem of being out of position in this typical scenario. First, this being a game of information, having to act first means that to avoid being in the dark we need to invest more money, yet even when we do bet we are not going to be much wiser if our opponent merely calls – in fact the problem could be compounded if the river fails to help or further adds to the confusion and again we are first to act. On the other hand, if we check the turn and are faced with a bet, this ‘information’ could mean completely different things – our opponent might have filled a flush or the bet could be a total bluff that might see us folding the stronger hand, while it is also quite feasible that it is a genuine bet with another made hand. This example well illustrates the implications of position at the crucial stage of a hand. Of course it helps to be in position, but the more we appreciate its significance the more opportunities we will come across if it is apparent the opposition doesn’t fully understand the concept.

Having position on the turn also gives us more influence on pot control, so that we can call/bet/raise and so on according to the relative strength of our hand. Acting first might mean having to check-call with a decent but not great hand, for example. With the same hand when in position we can simply check behind to keep the pot at an acceptable level in order to be able to make an affordable call on the river. This has the advantage of inducing a bluff and thus earning more from the pot than if we had bet the turn (thus running the risk of running into a hefty check-raise).

With a not so good hand that we probably won’t want to invest further in should the river not help, then it is prudent to give way to any aggression on the turn rather than planlessly waste a bet.

Some players don’t like to check with a decent hand out of position because of the subsequent uncertainty in the event of having to deal with the opponent betting. Instead they bet out to hopefully take the pot against an opponent who simply believes this show of aggression, but to do this it helps if we feel that a further bet (bigger, as the pot is growing) will do the trick – otherwise the resulting bigger pot makes the river situation more urgent than the turn. Nevertheless, getting into the habit of being too passive doesn’t win pots, and betting here also has the advantage of earning value from those players who call (and are loathe to raise) with a weaker hand.

Positional considerations are key to turn play, and combining these with relevant factors will make a big difference to our results, especially if we haven’t before properly investigated this specific part of the game.

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We hear about the potential stack-winning power of suited connectors and small pocket pairs so much nowadays that there’s a tendency, in our eagerness to get involved with this kind of hand, to make mistakes.

Let’s take a look at what should and shouldn’t be done with small pocket pairs which, for the sake of clarity, we’ll call 22 up to 66.

Obviously the point of playing small pairs is to hit a camouflaged monster when another of their siblings appears on the flop and, hopefully, get the maximum number of chips as a ‘reward’ from someone with pocket aces, for example. That’s the ideal scenario, but while waiting for it to happen we must be aware of the fact that the chance of hitting three-of-a-kind on the flop is less than 11% – in other words around 90% of the time we will miss and most likely have to give up on the flop. These seem like poor odds but the idea is to take advantage of the favourable ‘implied’ odds, which are so named because the size of the big pot won should outweigh the total of the modest investments we pay out when we miss.

It is logical, then, that we make sure the price we pay to enter a pot with our small pairs offers the right value in relation to potential gains. If we keep paying too high a price pre-flop the danger is we won’t make enough to overcome these losses when we get lucky.

Therefore if someone with the same stack size raises as much as 20% of their stack we clearly are not getting the correct odds to call. Moreover, even if the odds appear to be slightly in our favour, this is not really the case. This is because it is quite possible that when we do hit a set the opposition misses completely and we fail to win a big enough pot to cover our investments. With this in mind it is prudent when considering implied odds to tweak the numbers so that we get involved only when there is 12 times our pre-flop stake on the table as potential winnings.

We must also factor in our position. The earlier we are in the pre-flop betting the greater the chance of someone throwing a spanner in the works by upping the stakes to a level that is no longer in our favour. That isn’t to say we should automatically fold to cut our losses as soon as a (re)raise appears, rather we need to weigh up the size of the relevant stacks and subsequent potential gains and act accordingly. But clearly the later our position the more attractive our pocket pair becomes as the fewer players yet to act means less chance of spoiler raises..

When we do hit a magical flop the point of the exercise is obviously to milk the pot for as much as possible against whoever has also got a (less string) piece of the action.

It is important not to get too ‘clever’ when possible straight and flush draws arise, and indeed we must be aggressive in order to make these draws pay through the nose to see more cards. Otherwise, with a harmless looking flop (is any flop harmless?) it is a case of the number of opponents, our knowledge of their play thus far and reading their hands. We might raise immediately if we think that the opposition is going to be prepared to commit, or merely call to instead let the pot build more slowly at first (for instance with an ace on the board we can allow our opponent to build the pot).

Most of the time we will miss, but this does not rule out our winning the pot, particularly against a lone opponent or a couple who have shown themselves to be passive thus far. The fact we stayed involved pre-flop means we must have ‘something’ worth investing in, so a bet even after missing gives us a fighting chance of winning, and if we make a half-pot bet we need to pick up the pot only a third of the time.

Remember, small pairs have great potential value but this must be weighed against how much we pay pre-flop and the opposition’s stack sizes. We need to see flops as cheaply as possible, preferably in later position, be prepared to let go when we miss but also willing to take a stab at the pot against lone opponents. Finally, don’t slowplay on flops showing straight or flush draws.

Welcome to 32Red’s regularly updated Poker Quiz section where we ask you all sorts of poker questions and all you have to do is answer them correctly to enter our draw for free cash prizes & tournament tickets!

Win at the 32Red Poker cash tables and you may qualify for even more cash rewards with our Wise Guys weekly leaderboards. Yes, we reward our biggest winners at 32Red Poker and we reward them well, with over $1,000 in prizes every week!

Welcome to 32Red’s regularly updated Poker Quiz section where we ask you all sorts of poker questions and all you have to do is answer them correctly to enter our draw for free cash prizes & tournament tickets!

Are you ready?

This tournament runs daily on 32Red Poker at 8pm (UK time), what is it called?

Welcome to 32Red’s regularly updated Poker Quiz section where we ask you all sorts of poker questions and all you have to do is answer them correctly to enter our draw for free cash prizes & tournament tickets!

Are you ready?

How much is each package worth in our Gibraltar – Cannes 2011 promotion?